


It's Ancient History

by cyrene



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, F/M, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Ozai's A+ Parenting Skills, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, canon takes place in three years instead of one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:22:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24381235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrene/pseuds/cyrene
Summary: Everyone knows that Zuko loves Katara. Azula even has a pool going for when they're going to get together. If Zuko could ever get it together, that is.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 551





	It's Ancient History

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. For your listening pleasure, the song that inspired this fic is ["Used to Be" by Matt Nathanson.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4CjHIvwzUA)
> 
> 2\. Your Zutara Month fics are giving me life rn. I have had the worst writer's block since January, and this is the first thing I've written since. You can thank my kids, and their desire to binge ATLA on Netflix, and my thief, who is always my biggest cheerleader.
> 
> 3\. Okay, so imagine canon took three years instead of one. This fic takes place a year and a half after that.
> 
> 4\. Um, there is a little smut here? Like, IDEK what came over me. But you're warned.

Ember Island was empty, being that it was the off-season. Zuko got out of his twelve-year-old fire red Yaris and stretched. He had stolen the car from a girl and her mother while he and Uncle Iroh had been wandering through the Earth Kingdom hiding from the Fire Nation. After he’d taken back the throne, he’d sent them a new one, but kept the original. It had too many memories at that point.

“I can’t believe you’re still driving that thing,” a voice called out. Katara was standing in front of the house, her long brown hair loose and blowing in the wind. “That car is for college girls and clowns.”

“You texted me, ‘Ember Island, come alone,’” he pointed out as he walked over to where she stood. “How discreet would you like me to be?”

“Point,” she acknowledged.

“So, what can I do for you?” he asked, his heart beating a little faster with the question. She had asked him to come alone, after all. He tried not to think of the possibilities. Like the fact that Sokka had told him, during a lengthy phone call last week that touched on many varied subjects, that Katara was single again.

“Well,” she said, a little too quickly for supposedly not being nervous, “I broke up with Aang and someone is writing a biography of me for young adults.”

“I... don’t even know where to start with that,” he admitted.

Katara laughed, and it was her real laugh, the one that rang out free and true, not the forced thing everyone had been getting from her lately.

“Come,” she said. “Sit. Let’s talk.”

He went up to the verandah, sat down on the dark red cushion on one of the old rocking chairs. Katara sat next to him, reaching her hand out to take hold of his, and he let her, even if he was a little hesitant to do so.

“So,” he said slowly. “Aang? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine with it,” she said a little too easily.

She and Aang had been together for a year and a half, he would have thought that she would be more broken up about it. Maybe she had already had time to get over it? Zuko would be the first to admit that he didn’t really understand how girls worked. Maybe a week was enough time to get over a relationship. How was he to know? When he and Mai broke up, Mai had seemed to be pretty angry at first, but she got over it within the course of the break-up conversation.

He wanted to ask what happened but thought that might be intrusive. Katara deserved her privacy always, but especially in times like this, when everything looked like it was falling apart around her.

“I can’t just pretend like the things that happened during the war, the things _we did_ never happened,” she said, despite his thoughts. “I know Aang wants to forget the past and move on, but I guess I just don’t work like that. And I can’t just follow the Avatar around the world, doing whatever he wants to do, and call that my life, you know? I have my own dreams, my own ambitions, and I...” she hesitates for the first time, her pleasant demeanor faltering. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep pretending that his life is my _whole_ life.”

“That’s... rough, Katara,” he said. Because what the hell was he supposed to say to that? She wasn’t wrong. Her life was _her life_ , and she deserved to live it as she saw fit. And...

“I think I know what you mean,” he said quietly. “About the war. It... stays with me. Uncle has me seeing a therapist once a week,” he admitted, in an embarrassingly small voice.

“How’s that going?” Katara asked, and she asked it so easily. Like she was asking after the state of the palace turtleducks. He shrugged. “I only ask,” she went on, “because I start next week.”

He wondered at her for a moment, able to say that without any shame. He bet she truly believed that she wasn’t any lesser for needing help, the way he believed about himself. He knew he didn’t think any less of _her_ for it, and so maybe it was time to let go of his anger towards himself a little.

“It’s good,” he assured her. “It’s hard, it’s a lot of work, but it’s good. I feel... better. Better than I was before, anyway.”

She nodded, lips pursed with thought. “Good. I thought it might be.”

“So, what’s this about a book?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.

She was laughing again, so hard she was holding her sides in. “Oh, yeah, the book! So, this publishing company in the Earth Kingdom wants to publish a biography of me for young adults. They’re going to be going around interviewing people, so I thought I would warn all of you in advance, just in case she comes knocking on your door.”

Zuko wasn’t stupid. This was a text conversation, at best. Katara was one of the few people who had his private number, and this was just the kind of reason for that.

“I won’t tell anyone anything you wouldn’t want them to know,” he said quietly, looking away from Katara and out into the push and pull of the ocean’s waves. Blue, like her eyes, they drew him in.

“I know,” she replied just as quietly. “But I thought... I guess I thought _you_ might want to talk about it? With me?”

Zuko’s eyes widened. “Why would I want to talk about it with you?!”

Katara started, then shrugged. And, okay, that had come out pretty harsh. But what was she getting at exactly? They didn’t talk about what happened. Not once. Especially not since the war ended and Katara had stopped kissing him and started kissing Aang.

“Okay,” she said lightly, but she had a little frown line between her eyes.

Late that night, when Zuko finally got back to the palace, he went straight upstairs, flopped down onto his bed, and screamed into his pillow for a minute. It kinda helped. Like, it didn’t entirely take away the feeling that he had panicked and ruined something, but it got rid of some of the burning self-anger in him.

He had basically spent the last year and a half pining after his best friend’s girlfriend. And the months before that... well, no one knew about that except for Zuko and Katara. And Toph. But Toph knew everybody’s business, it was the price of being friends with the master earth bender.

Sure enough, Zuko’s private phone rang. He answered with a tired, “Hello? Zuko here.”

“What’s up, buttercup?” said a gleeful voice on the other end of the line. “I heard Katara went out on a super secret mission today. A little sparrowkeet tells me you were involved. Are you two bumping uglies again?”

If Zuko had ever thought that Toph would mature into adulthood, this greeting was surely proof against it.

“What?! No! We were not – _doing_ anything. She wanted to warn me about her book.”

Toph made a noise, sounding like she was blowing a raspberry. “That’s a texting conversation. Phone call at worst. What’d she really want to see you about?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped, frustrated, “all we talked about is the book and her breakup with Aang.”

“Hmmm,” Toph said thoughtfully. “Thanks, ‘Zuzu’. I’ll have to tell Azula to update the pool.”

“Toph,” Zuko said, the picture of patience and understanding, “tell me that my sister is not running a betting pool from her mental health facility.”

But Toph just laughed and hung up the phone.

*

They stop for the night on the way back from Whaletail Island, to let Appa sleep. Katara hasn’t said a word the whole time they fly. They set up camp in silence, and it feels pregnant with what just happened with Yon Rha. They eat, silently, and Zuko watches Katara stare into the fire he made to keep her warm and cook her rice.

When she stands, he stands too, though he doesn’t know why. He’s still at the ready for whatever she needs to do to get through this.

What he’s not ready for is when she takes two steps over to him and kisses him. He makes a sound like, “Mmph!” then settles into the kiss, acting on instinct to let him know what she needs for him to do. She’s got one hand in his shaggy hair and the other on his bicep, squeezing tight and pulling him closer. He feels a warm spark in his chest, and it’s growing at an alarming rate.

She doesn’t say anything as they part for breath, nor when she leaves him standing there and goes back to her bedroll. He never knows what to expect from this girl and it’s keeping him permanently off-balance. Doesn’t she hate him? Wasn’t that what she had said, or at least implied every day with her speeches and sarcastic comments? His face is the face of the enemy.

He doesn’t know what all that was about – adrenaline, maybe – but he’s glad he could help her through it.

*

The meeting was almost over, not that Zuko was watching the clock or anything. Being Fire Lord was important to him, a challenge he usually relished in, but he was feeling impatient and restless. He needed... something.

“One last thing, Fire Lord Zuko, if you will,” a counselor piped up from the table where the counselors all sat. “We have a list here, of, ah, _requests_ from former Fire Lord Ozai, to do with his, ah, containment.”

“Denied,” Zuko said without even thinking about it.

The counselors looked surprised, but Zuko wasn’t giving his father _shit_. The man was, even in prison, treated like the former king he was, right down to the three-piece suit he was allowed to wear every day, and he still refused to disclose the information he knew about Zuko’s mother. This was probably just another trick: Zuko would give him whatever stupid luxury he wanted, and Ozai would just laugh at him and imply that he was a sucker. Again. They’d been through this before, more than enough times for Zuko to be sick of it.

He rose from the throne and exited through the passage behind it, where he was surprised to find Katara waiting for him, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Still fighting with your father, I see,” she said, and amused smirk on her face.

Zuko felt like he was being called out, somehow, and bristled. “What are you doing here? This passage is for the Fire Lord.”

“Your guards are super distractible, just saying.”

“I’ll have to work on that,” he replied dryly. “Seriously, though, I thought you were back in the South Pole.”

Katara shrugged. “I had some business to take care of in the former colonies, thought I’d swing by and see how our favorite Fire Lord is doing. Good thing I did – you look awful. Have you been sleeping at all lately?”

“I’m fine,” Zuko said calmly, or as calmly as he could manage. It sounded serene enough, but didn’t quite cover the turmoil within.

“Good. Let’s go feed the turtleducks.”

So he ordered a tray of snacks and a bowl of fruit and veg from the kitchens and they went down to the pond in the Women’s Gardens. They sat there all afternoon, eating tarts and tossing grape halves and lettuce to the happily quacking turtleducks. They didn’t talk about anything important whatsoever.

Zuko tried screaming into his pillow later that night, but it didn’t help as much as it had before.

*

They spend the mornings sparring. First, the three instructors all give Aang his marching orders for the day, then it’s pretty much a free-for-all. They spar each other, and Aang, getting to know each other’s styles and moves as well as their own.

Zuko’s favorite sparring partner is Katara, by far. Aang and Toph, and even Sokka, keep him on his toes, sure, but not like she does. She’s so clever and creative when she’s in her element, and he spends half his time just trying to keep up with her. It’s even worse at night, when they sometimes meet out on the beach after everyone else is asleep and the two of them, for one reason or another that they certainly are not discussing, could not. Sometimes they spar, then, and she is truly a wonder under the moon.

Usually, especially after a good sparring match, they end up laying out on the beach, making out furiously in the sand. They are a monster of hands and teeth, pulling each other apart and putting themselves back together only when they are alone again.

They never talk about it. They never make plans. Zuko just takes this as it happens, and learns to be grateful it happens at all. He’s never kissed anyone besides Mai, never gone further, so this is a pretty big revelation for him. He cannot fathom why someone as powerful and wonderous as Katara would want to share it with _him_ , but he is grateful for every moment that she does.

The spark in his chest grows into a raging inferno.

*

Aang stopped by without warning, as he was prone to do. Ever the free spirit, the best one could hope from him was a call from just outside the front door to announce his arrival.

“I want to talk to you about an idea I have,” he said, having finally started to grow into his serious expression. He had a beardish thing now, and Zuko tried not to stare at it, or laugh.

Aang’s idea was to found a city outside the walls of the four nations or the air temples. A city where people from anywhere could call home, a giant melting pot of culture. It was a good idea. Definitely idealistic, but the kind that was worth pursuing.

“You’ve been all over the world, just like me,” Aang told him. “I need your help with this.”

“Aang,” he pointed out hesitantly, “I don’t know how people will take it if the Fire Lord appears to be invested in territory outside the Fire Nation so soon after the war.”

“Toph already said she’d help, Sokka’s bringing Suki on board, and even Katara’s excited. I think our group is diverse enough that people won’t mind. They won’t think badly of you, Zuko, and you don’t have to spend all your energy worrying that your choices will make them remember your family.”

Zuko had somehow forgotten, somewhere in there, that Aang was the Avatar and had been raised by monks. It was easy to forget while he was riding enormous sea creatures or scaling statues just to get a better vantage point, but Aang could be really wise when he wanted to.

“Katara’s in?” Zuko asked, trying not to sound painfully obvious, which he could have sworn he’d mastered over a year ago.

“I talked to her last week, at the South Pole. She’s all in.”

“Are you two... okay?” Zuko winced. That sounded stupid.

Aang shrugged lightly, though. “Yeah, we’re cool. Now, I mean. I wasn’t exactly receptive to what she was saying at first, but I’ve had a couple of months to think about it, and I think she’s right. We’re too young and too different to make it work. I have to focus on the future, rebuilding the air temples and stuff. She doesn’t deserve to just follow me around feeling useless and pushed to the side. That’s not what I ever wanted for her, but that’s how she felt, and I feel really terrible about it.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Aang,” Zuko said sincerely.

“Not exactly, but it kind of was. I get so focused on the goal, sometimes I can’t see anything else.”

“I know what that feels like,” Zuko admitted. He had, of course, been the one to pursue Aang all over the world to redeem his honor.

“So, will you come with us? We’re all meeting up at the Western Air Temple in two weeks to location scout.” Aang’s eyes were big and pleading, and Zuko was reminded of the twelve-year-old boy he had first met in the South Pole.

“Of course I’ll come,” he said softly. How could he not?

*

The first time they go any further, it’s all Katara. They’re making out on the beach at night again, and she’s straddling him. She holds his wrists down up above his head and laughs like she’s got him. She hasn’t; he could break her grip easily, but he’ll be damned if he wants to.

He arches his head up to capture her mouth, then her neck, kissing his way down to her clavicle and the little hollow at the base of her throat. What is that spot called, anyway? He’s fascinated by it, by her.

Zuko is nineteen, he’s been all over the world, and he’s never seen anything more beautiful than a seventeen-year-old Southern Water Tribe girl in the moonlight. He breaks her grip so he can reach up and touch her face, and run his fingers through her long brown hair, almost as dark as his in the night, and shining.

She starts taking off his clothes, then, and he just kind of goes with it, making no move to disrobe her, but allowing her to divest him of his shirt and pants.

“Have you ever done this before?” he asks as she removes her clothing, his voice breaking the stillness of their night.

“What does _that_ matter?” she scoffs, offended.

“Well, it’s different if you haven’t,” he tries to explain, but she waves him off.

“I know it’s supposed to hurt the first few times,” she says crossly, obviously covering for how nervous she is.

He sits up a little. “What?!” he demands. “That’s _insane_. If somebody hurt you, they were doing a very bad job at it.”

She looks at him with her head cocked to one side, confused.

“Come here,” he says, laying back down in the sand. “No, _all_ the way up here.”

He helps her move with his hands gripping her thighs, positioning her so she’s kneeling with her legs on either side of his face. With her legs spread like that, she’s open to him, and he gently kisses and licks places he’s only heard about before, determined to do this right. Her surprised sigh above him tells him he must be on the right track.

_Write every kanji you can think of with your tongue_ , had been the sailors’ advice on this subject, back when he was on the ship with Uncle and they had all taken it upon themselves to give him “the talk.”

So Zuko composes a poem to her beauty made up of all the words he knows.

Her hands fist in his hair, and her muffled exclamations grow wilder until she lets out one final cry and slumps down a little. She does not see the ocean behind her, the way the waves grow larger and more intense the closer she gets, but he does. He feels strangely proud.

“Now,” she hisses, breathlessly, as she crawls backward down his body to settle with her legs around his waist again, kissing him until he is breathless too. He can still taste her in his mouth, and he wonders if she can taste herself on him too.

She lowers herself onto him slowly – and thank goodness for that because it gives him time to breathe and maintain a semblance of self-control – until he is fully sheathed inside her.

“Did it –?”

“No,” she says softly. “Not a bit. It’s a weird stretch, but it feels... good.”

He’s got his hands on her hips and he moves her slightly, an adjustment really, but she gasps at the sensation, rocking back and forth slightly. He encourages her with his hands, pushing and pulling gently in time with her movements.

It’s perfect. He can’t think about anything else but the way their bodies are joined together and the movement between them. He would stay like this forever if he could, but mostly he’s just focusing on getting her off a few more times before he can’t take it anymore.

They fuck like rabbitmice after that night, whenever and wherever they can. He’s seriously concerned that they’ll get caught, with how little caution they show, but the others never do catch on. (Except for Toph, of course, who makes a few off-color jokes but mostly keeps to herself about it.)

They never talk about it, though.

*

He drove to the Western Air Temple. Or, more accurately, he sat patiently in his car on the ferry on the way to the Western Air Temple.

The Western Air Temple was the one where he first met up with the gang with the idea to join their group. It was comprised of a series of structures built on the underside of some cliffs. It had seen better days, but Aang had been working diligently on the Southern Temple for the past year and a half and hoped to move on to the others soon.

They all met above the temple, on the cliffs. Zuko was the last to arrive, parking his car next to a resting Appa. He was still in the Yaris because, like, was he really going to bring the BMW to the middle of nowhere to “location scout” for a new city? He probably should have brought something that would do better off road, but he had assumed they would all ride on Appa to look around.

“Sparky!” Toph called as he got out of the car and approached, launching herself into his arms. “Long time, no see!”

“Ha-ha, Toph,” Zuko replied dryly, but he hugged the woman with fervor.

He had missed this, all of them together in the same place, with a mission and a plan, seeing the world from a flying bison’s point of view. He felt like he could accomplish anything with the gang at his side. It made even running a country seem simple.

“Oh, I totally missed flying!” Toph said sarcastically as they took off. “Ooh, look! There’s a good spot!”

“Toph,” Sokka, who had whipped his head around to follow Toph’s pointing finger, whined, “can you not? It’s been, like, five years.”

Toph just grinned and leaned back, reclining with her head on her hands and crossing her bare feet at the ankles.

They flew around all morning before stopping somewhere random in the former colonies for lunch. It was a vast open field near a beach, which led to the channel between the Fire Nation and its former colonies.

“I like this place,” Aang declared as they passed around dishes and portioned out their servings. “It’s peaceful here.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to keep it in mind,” Katara said thoughtfully as she looked at their surroundings.

They flew a bit more that day, but everyone’s thoughts returned to the spot where they had stopped for lunch. Nothing they found seemed to fit quite as well.

*

On his way home, Zuko swung by the facility to visit Azula. It had been a couple of weeks, and he had the time and mental fortitude.

Azula had stopped asking when she was going to get out. Almost two years of intensive therapy had done wonders on her mental health, and she seemed almost content where she was. Which was good, because the alternative had been prison and Zuko felt good knowing he had made the right choice for his sister. He did love her, deeply, and all he wanted was for her to be happy and healthy.

“Good afternoon, Azza,” he said softly as he sat down at one of the tables in the visitor area. Azula was working on a large jigsaw puzzle and did not look up.

“Zuzu, be a dear and tell me the news. How is Aang’s plan for a ‘melting pot’ city going? Is Suki pregnant yet? Have you and Katara resumed more intimate relations?”

“What?! That’s really personal, Azula, and also no. And also no again, because I heard about the betting pool.”

Azula glanced up for only a moment. “Suki’s pregnant, isn’t she?”  
  


“Well, yes, but...”

“YES!” Azula exclaimed, fitting three pieces into the puzzle. “I win.”

“You can’t bet on people’s lives like that,” he said indignantly.

“No, _you_ can’t,” Azula pointed out. “I, on the other hand, have very little to do with my time.”

“What would you like to do?” he asked, reasonably. Whatever it was, he always tried to facilitate it for her. She had taken up art (woodburning) and music and got plenty of time to meditate and practice her bending.

She leveled him with her best Look. “I’m ready to get out in the world now,” she said flatly. “But I don’t know if the world is ready for me.”

Boy, did he know that feeling.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.

It was an empty sort of promise, which promised nothing specifically, but he still took his promises to his sister very seriously. He would take advice when he got home, and see what could be done for her.

*

The war is over, and they’re all gathered at Uncle Iroh’s teashop, The Jasmine Dragon, to celebrate. Amid the raucous celebration, he sees Aang step outside on the balcony, and Katara follow. They kiss, gentle and chaste, and Zuko knows that whatever he and Katara had going on is over now.

He’s not upset at Katara, nor at Aang. What chance did he ever stand, after all, against the Avatar, Master of all four elements and penguin sledding?

*

He went to visit Uncle at the tea shop a week later. He shouldn’t be gone this much, he knew he needed to stay in the Fire Nation as much as possible, but he needed the advice and comfort of the man he considered to be his true father. The man who made him into the man he was.

Uncle was delighted to see him, of course, without question. He always was. Visiting Uncle, even in an Earth Kingdom tea shop, felt like coming home. It felt like taking your shoes off at the end of a long day.

Zuko sighed as he sat down, lifting the steaming cup of tea to his mouth and taking a slow sip. Uncle truly made the best tea. Even with the blends that Uncle would send him, Zuko could not achieve this.

“What is troubling you, my nephew?” Uncle asked, his face scrunched up into a frown.

“Why would anything be troubling me?” Zuko returned fire, the picture of guilt.

“Perhaps this is a social call, then?” Uncle beamed, and Zuko snorted. “No, I think not. Out with it, then.”

Instead, he distracted Uncle with talk of Aang’s new city. The site they had chosen, the meetings that were being held, negotiations with the Earth King.

He talked about Azula, and how much better she was doing, and how he didn’t know what to do with that information. How to rebuild a relationship with her when he bore literal scars from their shared past.

He even talked about Ozai, and the frustration of not being able to help him. Ozai’s therapist even thought he was a hopeless case, but Zuko still insisted they meet twice a week. And, because of him, Zuko was no closer to finding his mother than he had been when the war ended.

Zuko really laid it all out on the table. Everything except –

“And how are _you_ , Zuko?” Uncle said with his piercingest gaze. “I now know how my niece and even my brother are doing, but what about my favorite nephew?”

“I... I abide,” Zuko said quietly, looking away.

“Is there anyone special I should know about?” Uncle wheedled, giving Zuko his most winsome smile.

Zuko couldn’t lie. Not to Uncle. “I – Uncle I don’t have time for love!” he snapped.

“Ah,” Uncle nodded sagely, “but love often comes to us when we least expect it. When we are ill-prepared and do not feel ready. So, who is this special lady?”

“I don’t, I mean, she doesn’t... she doesn’t think about me like that,” Zuko muttered. “It’s nothing.”

Uncle looked disappointed. Damn. He was always disappointing Uncle.

“Zuko, when you were a young man, I told you to ask yourself the big questions: who are _you_ , and what do _you_ want? Those questions still apply. If there is someone out there you love, you must put in the work to see it returned. Only then, if it is not returned, will you be able to move on, with the knowledge that you did everything you could, and it was not a failing in you.”

Zuko nodded, because Uncle was always right. “But I can’t ask her to give up her whole life to live in the Fire Nation with me. She values her freedom.”

“The heart of any good relationship is compromise. You would never want a traditional Fire Lady, one who was more ornamental than useful. I am sure the two of you could find a middle ground there.”

“But she just got out of a pretty big deal relationship. Everyone thought they were going to get married and be together forever.”

“But she broke it off,” Uncle pointed out, “so obviously _she_ did not think that.”

“Yeah, but – wait, how did you know _she_ broke it off?”

Uncle busied himself with more tea. “Were we _not_ talking about Lady Katara?” he asked innocently.

“You know about Azula’s pool,” Zuko said, one part awe and two parts anger. “What did you bet on?!”

“Well,” Uncle said with some significant amount of guilt, “I may have won quite a bit because of this conversation. I really was hoping you would come to me first.”

HOW DID HE DO THAT?! _He_ was the one betting on Zuko’s love life, and somehow turned it around to... to be something sweet about their relationship?! Zuko found himself growling a little, and took a deep breath.

“Yeah, I have to go.” He stood up and started walking away.

“If you go straight to the South Pole,” Uncle called out after him, “I win that side bet too!”

*

Zuko did not go to the South Pole. He went to Ember Island.

Spring was coming to the island and, with it, families. Zuko remembered their family trips to the island when he was a child, remembered burning his family portrait on the night he and his childhood friends had their biggest heart to heart, remembered sex on the beach and being so in love he thought he would burst into flames from it.

He texted Aang three full paragraphs. The gist of it was, “Please don’t hate me, but I’ve been in love with Katara this whole time.”

“Can you wait to tell her on the new moon?” was the reply. “I kind of have a bet going.”

“I hate _all of you_ ,” Zuko said into the lonely night.

*

The biographer turned out to be pretty easy to take care of. Zuko basically just sat there, answered questions, fact-checked, and spoke glowingly about Katara for a few hours.

Even though it meant talking about his less than stellar past, Zuko found he could do it without the pain and regret he once held. After all, everything he’d done then had led to who he was now, and how could that be a bad thing? He had come so far from the boy who had first met Katara, Sokka, and Aang on the ice of the South Pole, demanding they release the Avatar into his custody.

And maybe, just maybe, Uncle was right about asking himself those big questions.

*

“‘Ember Island, come alone.’ Is this gonna be our new thing?” Katara teased.

Zuko flushed and shrugged. He hadn’t wanted to give too much away. Hadn’t wanted to scare her off with his intensity.

She must have seen something in his face, because she stopped smiling and put her hand on his arm.

“Zuko, are you okay?” she asked.

He leaned in and kissed her. He felt the ocean in her lips and hands, waves pushing and pulling at him, drawing him into _her_. His hands were in her hair, totally messing everything up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, catching his breath, “I had this whole argument planned out.”

“I don’t think we need to argue about this,” she replied, eyes full of mischief. “We were always very good at this.”

“I don’t want it to be like last time, though. Secret. I don’t want to be... disposable.”

“Oh, Zuko,” she said softly. “I am so, so sorry I ever made you feel that way.”

Then she was kissing him again, and he was trying to keep up, remembering all the little things she liked. A nip of teeth here, his hands circling her waist and lifting her up so she was taller than him. And an old fire bending trick from a book he wasn’t supposed to know about at remotely the age he had found it: trailing his fire-warm fingers across her skin, following with his tongue to soothe the heat.

“I... I want...” Zuko tried, but her mouth was on his again.

“Yes,” Katara said. “Yes, Zuko, I want that too.”

He figured they could talk in the morning.

*

Zuko awoke in his large royal bed, with a mouthful of Katara’s hair. She was laying on her side, looking at his phone.

“They’re about to find out I’m the one who won the pool,” she said with a grin. “We have enough to take a vacation anywhere in the world, and I promise you, we will sort this out along the way. So, what do you think?”

“Hmm,” he frowned. “I think you’ll have to get me out of this bed first.”

She laughed, rolling over to kiss him. It was nothing like the way things used to be, but it was so much better for it.

**Author's Note:**

> P.S.: Link me your Zutara tunes.


End file.
